what is computer programming? Computer Programming is writing computer code to create a program, to solve a problem. To tell a computer to do something, a program must be written to tell it exactly what to do and how to do it – Computers can’t think for themselves! A programming language is an artificial language that a computer understands. The language is made up of series of statements that fit together to form instructions. These instructions tell a computer what to do.

Python Over the next series of lessons we will learn how to program using Python Why? Python is a free program language which means you can use it in school, at home on any computer – PC, Mac, Raspberry Pi, Linux. You can even get apps on your tablet that let you code in them. But why do we need to know how to program? This video might explain why it is a useful skill to learn http://uk.code.org/

Strings Each individual character is given an address or position in the string This starts at 0 not 1. You can use the Python Cheat Sheet found in V:/ICT/KS4/Year 9/Python to help you if you get stuck!

How to print strings print(“Hello World”) The print command word must have a lowercase p The print command will print everything inside its bracket pairs () They must be opened ( They must be closed ) To print a string of text the text must be inside speech marks “text goes here”

Variables Variables are locations that we can use to store data in. Think of it as box in which we can temporally store data in. myBox 4 You can use the Python Cheat Sheet found in V:/ICT/KS4/Year 9/Python to help you if you get stuck!

How to print variable A Variable must be declared before it is assigned a value: MyVariable = “String of text” print(MyVariable) Declaring the variable Assigning a value Printing the variable name Remember the brackets, but this time no speech marks Remember: lower case p

Flow Charts Start/End – Process (do something without input or output)- Decision – Input / - Output – Subroutine – Save to file – Loop –